Convicted killer gets max in strangulation of West Brighton woman

Staten Island Advance/Michael OatesCalvin Lawson is escorted out of the 120 Police precinct stationhouse after his arrest on May 5, 2009.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The man convicted of strangling a West Brighton woman in her apartment last year was hit with the maximum sentence today, as a judge shipped him to prison for 25 years to life in the brutal slaying.

"I am not guilty of this crime," Calvin Lawson, 29, said in state Supreme Court, St. George, before Justice Stephen J. Rooney imposed sentence. His attorney, Mark J. Fonte, vowed an appeal.

Lawson was convicted on May 26 of slaying Caroline Wimmer, 26, in her Greenleaf Avenue studio apartment -- because she allegedly had gossiped about him. He was convicted on a count of second-degree murder.

Prosecutors said Lawson killed Ms. Wimmer on March 28, 2009, over allegations that she had told his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, that he was cheating on her with another woman. The two argued and Lawson beat Ms. Wimmer before strangling her with the cord of a hair dryer, said prosecutors.

Lawson left the hair dryer on the victim when he departed.

In her victim's impact statement, Ms. Wimmer's sister, Christina Criscitiello, pleaded with Rooney to impose the maximum sentence on the killer, and made reference to Lawson's courtroom outburst the day of his conviction, when, upon hearing the jury's verdict, he tried to flip the defense table and struggled with court officers.

"Your honor, as you decide this murderer's fate, let me remind you of the fate he chose for my sister as he choked the last breath from her lungs and the light of life left her beautiful eyes," she said.

"He showed his violent monstrous temper at his conviction. Don't let him ever have the opportunity to take another life and destroy another family."